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In Tenerife, at the end of the restaurant day, the pig farmers venture out in their trucks, hauling their plastic trash barrels (wheelie bins for Peter). They make the rounds of all the guachinches (small family-run restaurants) where they have delivered their freshly slaughtered pigs that morning. This stronger-than-she-looks woman collecting the pig parts posed, proud of her traditional role in this symbiotic relationship. She has raised these pigs, and like a funeral director, has come back for their remains, not for internment, but for fodder back on the finca (ranch). Whatever is left on plates, in the kitchen, or in the cinder-block room where the meat is butchered is tossed into the green bin and later fed to the livestock being fattened for market. This cycle recurs daily: restauranteur dependent on farmer dependent on restauranteur.

Over the fence from my friend's finca, two away from the pig farm, the growing pigs can be heard crunching on the remains, including bones, of the pigs that said good bye that morning on their way into the food chain.

"It's enough to make one consider becoming a vegetarian," she said, taking another bite of chuleta de cerda... you guessed it - pork chop.